another gravity falls animation! :3 hope yall enjoy!
fuck tumblr mobile’s most recent update
broke: giving a girl character eyelashes because she is a girl
woke: giving every character eyelashes because it’s cute
Temples are built for gods. Knowing this a farmer builds a small temple to see what kind of god turns up.
NIK’S FOLLOWER PARTY ★ Maul + A Study of Zabraks for @obiewan 💌
chapter 20 of htn is short but has so much weight to it. the entirety of the chapter is this: the whole family watches and cleans up and does nothing else while harrow gets violated over and over again by her eldest brother, at the behest of her father.
the chapter begins with gideon penetrating harrow's pelvis, then god makes her whole again, yet claims powerlessness.
he calls her to his rooms and insists she consume things she does not like and does not want, and she does it, because she has nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, and no other form of protection.
the chapter ends with harrow seeking physical solace from the body: a woman, her silent caretaker, john's original victim,
and then it is revealed to us that the poem john recites to harrow is the poe verse at heart of humbert humbert's (of nabakov's lolita) backstory.
i really love the way tamsyn muir navigates incest and sexual violence here. it is inarguable that harrow the ninth is a family drama; john is a patriarch in every sense of the word: a divine patriarch, a scholarly father-figure, and a literal father; harrow's narration posits him as fatherly, ianthe's dialogue refers to him as such, the other lyctors half-jokingly call him daddy; the lyctors dutifully call each other brother and sister. they are god's children, in that he made them, literally or hegemonically, and as both lyctors and theocratic royalty, they interpret god's will. they have a religious compulsion to follow john's orders and to not question him. the lyctor's familial titles call to christian ecclesiastical titles of sister, brother, and father. john uses his self-appointed divine right and the historical hierarchy of the catholic church to perpetuate systematic violence and allegorical rape against harrowhark. john lived out a jesus narrative, coopted historical european aesthetics, political structures, and religion, recreated the catholic church with necromancy as religious praxis, and is now cycling through the historic legacy of that very system—and in this chapter, and harrow the ninth as a whole, the macro becomes the micro. this family dynamic is just a minute example of what is happening empire-wide.
on a non-religious note: i recently read the incest diary by anonymous, and this chapter reminded me of a few sections of that book where the author details moments where she brings up her incestuous abuse from her father to her family: her mother ignores her, just as she has ignored this fact for the author's entire life; her brother refuses to believe her and threatens to kill himself; her close family friend instructs her to never bring it up again, claiming that it happens to all women and that the author should get over it. mercymorn's callous caretaking of harrow in the previous chapter after gideon's first attack on her reminds me of this, as well as ianthe's mean-spirited snickering. the women in harrow's life reluctantly take care of her in the aftermath (if the family friend is to be believed, this happens to all women; it is entirely believable to me that both mercy and ianthe have been victims of sexual violence as well), and john heals her only to then put her in situations where she cannot say no to him. throughout the book, he steadily defiles her boundaries and backs her into emotional corners where she must confess to him, all the while using the threat of constant violence to keep her weak and scared. the physical is just a small part of the incestuous abuse happening in htn—so much of it is psychological, and it's psychological coming from the entire family. harrow's brother and sisters keep her from completely perishing under the weight of these attacks, but only just. and in doing this, they only enable john's abuse.
“It’s honest work”
my favorite louis trait is his eye for the future.
I can't get enough of how visionary he is.
this is a man who can look at his surroundings, no matter how dodgy or hopless they may look like, and see opportunity. See the upcoming change. See the potential. And he BELIEVES in that potential, fully, betting on it, believing in it, investing in it. And he's always RIGHT.
"My business could be bigger and just as successful if my girls co-optly own the whorehouse". And it works.
"Yesterday I saw a girl in an old, five year old dress, putting on a new lipstick". And he decides to believe in Paris.
"I'm not an artist, but I know what's good. I'm going to invest in little-known art and real estate, then re-sell it". And he becomes a millionaire doing that.
"This little nervous dude who's interviewing me is kind of an idiot, but I can see that he has potential. I'm going to give him a lifeline and the sheer will to keep working". And he changes Daniel's life.
He's such a hopeful person with an unwavering, profoundly generous kind of intuition. He doesnt HAVE to give back to his employees. He doesnt HAVE TO save Daniel. He sees things nobody else sees. He loves to see things grow.
To call him the first vampire capitalist is fair, but he's so much more than that...to me he's the first vampire since Lestat in the 1700s to be like: this life could be more than we're allowing it to be.
And people call him arrogant and too much because he's black, obviously, but he's SUCH an unflinching innovator and he sees SO MUCH. What arrogance? He's always looking at something beyond himself! Always looking forward! It's an instinct he had while alive, and now he has the time, the respect and the means to MAKE IT REAL.
I really love Louis so much. The first hopeful vampire.